Ten minutes later the gunner and Ned Burton were actually fast asleep. Sailors who have seen as many years of service as they had seem to be able to fall into the arms of Morpheus at a moment’s notice, even under extraordinary conditions.
How I envied my companions in misfortune!
For a long while—or so it seemed to me—sleep would not seal my eyes. The hurried rushing to and fro of men on deck, the creaking and clanking of spars and cables, the subdued shouts of those in command, and the answering hails from the crew—all combined to keep my senses on the alert and to banish slumber. Besides all this, my brain was in a whirl. All the strange adventures of the last twelve hours recurred again and again to my memory, and my anxious thoughts kept dwelling also upon the deadly perils of our present situation, and of the utterly unknown future looming like a gloomy cloud upon the horizon of our lives. I was especially oppressed with the dark foreboding that our shipmates would be unable to discover that we had been torn away from the shores of Cuba. I pictured them anxiously and energetically searching every nook and cranny of the valleys and hills in a vain search for us, and utterly ignorant of our real whereabouts.
It was weak and foolish of me to take this pessimistic view of matters, but the reader must kindly remember that I was in a very exhausted and overwrought state.
The waves were dashing against the vessel’s sides; she heeled over slightly under the influence of the land breeze; the noises on deck had ceased. We were under way.
The gentle, almost imperceptible motion of the little craft seemed to lull me to rest, and in a few minutes, in spite of the hard deck, my heavy iron manacles, and still heavier forebodings, I fell into a feverish, restless sleep—rocked in the cradle of the deep.
I was awoke some hours later by feeling a heavy hand upon my chest, and hearing a loud, fierce voice in my ear.
CHAPTER XVII.
ON BOARD THE PIRATE BRIG.
I started up. It was broad daylight. The ill-favoured countenance of the mule-driver was the first thing that met my gaze. The fellow was kneeling on the deck beside me, and there was a sardonic grin upon his swarthy visage as he stared at me.
“No can possible wake them mans,” he said, indicating my still slumbering shipmates with a jerk of one of his skinny fingers; “dare say you can do him.”